Engineer Development: Past, Present & Future

Tau Beta Pi would like to honor the 2001 death of solar physicist Arthur B.C. Walker. Dr. Walker, OH A ’57, spent almost twenty years as a professor at Stanford University where he mentored women and minority students, including the first female astronaut, Sally Ride.

He also was a role model for fellow professors at Stanford, including Condoleeza Rice. His research was focused on radiation from the Sun called extreme ultraviolet light. He worked with a team of scientists to develop “multilayer technology, for making special telescope mirrors that could reflect the radiation.” Read the full obituary from The New York Times for information about the picture taken by one of his rocket flights that landed on the cover of the journal Science in 1988.

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Dr. Cleve Moler, CA B ’61, is chief mathematician, chairman, and co-founder of MathWorks. He was author of the first version of MATLAB, and has co-authored three textbooks on numerical methods.

Dr. Moler spent almost 20 years as a professor of math and computer science at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of New Mexico. Click here to learn more about him and his contributions to MathWorks

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The Juneau Empire recently published an opinion piece written by Richard S. Reich, AK A ’84, and Gordon Pospisil discussing the importance of investing in local engineering education and engineering departments at the University of Alaska.

According to the article, “from 2000 to 2010 of the 1,351 University of Alaska engineering graduates, close to 70 percent remained in Alaska and more than 50 percent are working specifically in engineering-related occupations.” This was part of the argument made by Reich, chair of the UAA Engineering Advisory Council and general manager of UMIAQ, for investing in engineering because “strong universities create sustained economic opportunities for the surrounding communities.”

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